Regularly updated blog charting the most important albums of the last 50 years

Sunday, June 01, 2008

586. Anthrax - Among The Living (1987)

Track Listing

1. Among The Living 2. Caught In A Mosh 3. I Am The Law 4. Efilkinufesin 5. A Skeleton In The Closet 6. Indians 7. One World 8. A.D.I. / Horror Of It All 9. Imitation Of Life

Review

If Slayer is the thrash metal band that has the track length most similar to hardcore, then Anthrax is the thrash metal band that sounds most like an hardcore punk band, but it is of course peppered with all the silly excesses of thrash.

They are fast, but not as fast as Slayer, sounding meek in comparison and the lyrics are excruciatingly bad. If you are making a song about the plight of Native Americans you could have avoided calling them Indians.

But you don't look for smarts in a metal album, and this isn't the worse on the list by far, it is bearable. Caught in a Mosh is a good track, but the whole album quickly starts feeling boring and repetitive. Not terrible but not that good.

Track Highlights

1. Caught in a Mosh2. Efilkinufesin 3, Among The Living 4. I Am The Law

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The band and Eddie Kramer produced the album, which was released as a double album (along with Persistence of Time) in Germany in 2000. The album includes the singles, "I Am the Law" and "Indians". It is widely regarded as one of their best works and sets itself apart from many of its contemporaries by the lyrical humor of some of the songs. There are, however, also several songs with a serious political message behind them. On Anthrax's re-union tour in 2005 the bulk of their set consisted of material from Among the Living, while on their 2006 tour at solo-dates, for the first time ever, they performed the entire album.

Among the Living features a drawing of Henry Kane (a character from Poltergeist II motion picture). The band stated in interviews that he was the one thing that scared them the most.

Caught in a Mosh played on Guitar Hero by someone with the right mental age to truly appreciate it: